Solo Performance Commissioning Project

ID is delighted to have worked on this project with pioneering and award winnning choreographer Deborah Hay by producing nine UK SPCPs, in collaboration with Bodysurf Scotland. Deborah Hay decided that 2012 would be the final year of the Solo Performance Commissioning Project. She feels it is time to move on to a new and yet undefined process of making work and sharing it with others.

The final project took place in Findhorn in August 2012.

What is it?

With the Solo Performance Commissioning Project all participating artists commissioned the same solo dance choreographed by Deborah Hay. Hay rarely demonstrates solutions to the choreography. Rather, she conveys her concepts through directives that each performer translates individually into movement in his/her unique way. As part of the process, the artist is bound to the material through meditation-like exercises that are applied throughout the choreographed dance.

Deborah Hay’s orientation to dance is activated by attention to practices of performance. In an intense learning environment she challenges the experienced performer with movement concepts that trigger multiple levels of perception at once. She choreographs the world ‘between’ moments, where movement proclivity plays second fiddle to exercised inquiry.

In the latter half of the SPCP, each artist is personally coached in his/her performance of the dance, with everyone present. Ultimately the solo is adapted by each performer through a period of practice that extends into the months following the project.

The Documentary

ID commissioned artist Becky Edmunds to document the final edition of this unique project. For more about the film, click here.

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Background images by Julia Kalache, created in response to ID Professional classes. Website by John Hill, David Plews and the ID team.